Hello floggers (fello bloggers). My name is Hadley, and I like books. I usually read fiction, seeing as I'm someone who likes to believe in really unrealistic stuff, stuff that certain people who think too analytically, and believe that everything has a reasonable explanation don't usually enjoy. Personally, I've always liked the idea of making stuff up. In elementary school, I was always the kid whose friends always said "I'm gonna ask your mom" whenever I told them something, seeing as no one ever believed anything I said. The way that a writer makes up a story from their mind, and is able to craft a plot line, complex characters, and an in depth setting, just from their imagination, has always been nothing short of incredible in my opinion. So yeah, that's why I've always loved fiction. Personally, I don't prefer a certain genre of fiction, as long as it's interesting, and doesn't put me to sleep. I love any book that keeps me on my toes, and I don't usually categorize genres by whether I enjoy reading them or not. Because who knows. Maybe one day I'll find a historical fiction novel that keeps me up until one in the morning, turning pages and actively avoiding sleep. Although I'm not too convinced that will happen anytime soon.
I think my favorite part of reading is getting lost. Reading is a way for me to escape all of the stuff that's going on in my life, and get lost in the perspective of someone completely different from myself. It's a way to see the world other than through my own, incredibly biased point of view.
Recently, I've read a lot of books I really liked. Over the summer I read a book titled Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, and I can genuinely say that it is one of the best books I've ever read. While reading the book, I thought a lot about how people can't always be clearly distinguished as good or bad. The complexity of the characters, and the way they all had different, complicated, and hard to understand backgrounds, made me realized that it's wrong to section people off into good and bad. Good people make mistakes, and bad people donate thousands of dollars to charity each year. Honestly, it's all about perspective. And although this book is a fantasy tale of a girl named Lena, who possesses certain magical abilities that are shamed in her small, southern town, and a boy named Ethan, the spitting image of a "southern charmer", falling in love, I think this book changed my perspective. Overall, it's a well crafted plot that always keeps you on the edge of your seat, mixed in with a essence of intelligence that you don't always receive from fantasy books. I definitely recommend reading it. Often I'll find myself reading a book that isn't as expertly crafted as I would like it to be, and I find myself thinking, "these characters make the stupidest decisions, and their lives are totally unrealistic, what is this." But in Beautiful Creatures, both of the authors are so creative that I felt connected to the characters, and I felt as if they were real people just like me. This book was outstanding.
Another book I read over the summer is Paper Towns, by John Green. In the past, I've read books by John Green, and before starting Paper Towns, I already knew I was in for a really good read, seeing as in the past I had read his books and a lot of them were already on my list of favorite books. I liked Paper Towns because it was an adventurous novel, with an unusual plot line. It wasn't conventional in the sense that it wasn't a stereotypical teen romance novel about a typical boy falling in love with the typical girl next door. Paper Towns was what every teenage girl wants from a novel, but creative, and John Green approached the concept of the genre in his own, completely original way. Paper Towns was like a romantic comedy film, only better, and printed on paper instead of shown on the big screen. Although now it is a movie, and one of my favorite models, Cara Delevigne, portrays the main character, Margo Roth Spiegalman.
I read a lot compared to some people, and very little compared to others. I think how much I read is the result of the time window in which I usually read. During the day, I find myself really busy, so I don't have enough time during to read. I tend to read more at night, so that means that there's a select four hours from about eight to twelve o'clock every night for me to read. Sometimes I read for four hours, and other times I'll start reading at ten and read for about fifteen minutes before falling asleep. It depends on the night, and how tired I am from the day I just had.
Although I find myself becoming more and more occupied with things outside of the world of literature, reading will always be one of my favorite things to do. Getting lost in someone else's world is a way for me to escape my own, and there's nothing I'd rather do.
